


Pulled Me Apart (I'm So Open)

by aintweproudriff



Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: M/M, Sharing a Bed, canon typical alcoholism, canon typical nightmares and trauma, cliches, the whole dnb is gay and there's nothing you can do about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-07-25 10:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16195661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: "They did make their way up to the room, Davy holding out hope the whole way up that Donny had been wrong about his mistake and the two of them were actually getting a room with two beds. Upon opening the door, however, Davy had to let go of that wish. One bed, clear as day."OR I love to write tropes





	1. Chapter 1

Davy loved to tour.  
In the past, a 'tour' had never been a positive thing. In the army, a tour was a death sentence, a swear word to make even the most hardened man weak.  
But a tour with a band, a band of people he liked to be around and tease and laugh with, a band he had helped start and that meant so much to not only himself but to thousands of people across the country - that was a tour he could deal with and enjoy. That was a tour that promised playing music across the country and seeing all sorts of places he'd never imagined: mountains, oceans, plains, forests and deserts. This was a tour that promised meeting other military men and women and hearing their stories. People recently had been taking to ordering him drinks at bars they played at, knowing how much a drink could mean to a veteran.  
This was a tour that promised growth in his friendships with his bandmates. After all, they all knew that the best way to really know someone was to live with them in cramped, disgusting quarters, and to all share tough experiences every day. Overseas, it was fighting. Here, it was concerts.  
And after a concert, Davy's favorite thing was to drink until he couldn't stand, drop dead asleep in a hotel bed, and wake up the next morning with the simple goal of doing it again the next day.  
He assumed that was also the favorite routine of his bandmates (with or without the drinking), and that was why such a ruckus arose when they discovered the situation in the Nashville hotel. 

"So, guys," Donny ran a hand though his hair as he and Julia walked up to the where Davy, Jimmy, Nick, Johnny, and Wayne stood on the curb outside the hotel. 

Nick hummed lowly, and Davy could tell he was suspicious. Probably had good reason for it, too. Donny never looked less than cocky about most things, so this could spell bad news.

"What did you do?" Jimmy sighed, and Davy laughed to himself. No matter how much Jimmy pretended to be annoyed by Donny, actual distaste for the man was impossible. Something about Donny made him invincible to hatred, and somehow, that was the most annoying thing about him.

Donny mocked offense. "Why do you assume it's my fault?"

"Is it?" Johnny asked, widening his eyes and obviously hoping that the innocently phrased question would mask a joke at Donny's expense. 

Julia nodded at Johnny, her lips twitching. Donny must not have noticed, because he groaned. 

“I screwed up the rooms. Instead of three doubles and a single, I got two doubles and two singles.”

A collective sigh passed over the group. 

“So what, we draw straws?” Wayne asked, swallowing heavily. 

Davy rolled his eyes. “We could. But is there anyone who wouldn’t mind taking the room and living with it?”

No one said anything. 

“Okay,” Davy laughed lightly, and turned to his right. “Julia, Donny, can’t you guys just take it? Y’know, being basically married and-”

“-Remember when we were in DC?” Julia raised her eyebrows. “And there were reporters in the lobby? Donny and I came down for breakfast together and-”

“-Photos on the front page of a trash tabloid,” Nick finished for her. “Something about,” he put his hands up like framing a marquis, “‘Gold Star Golden Girl Dishonors Hero Late Husband by’-”

Jimmy stepped forward. “We don’t need to bring all that back up. Donny and I could take it.”

“I don’t like the sound of that, Jim,” Donny shook his head. “Again, if a secret got out about you-” he trailed off, and Davy had to smile. Donny’s protectiveness was worse than Julia when it came to Jimmy, and everyone knew by this point that if Donny was going to be a mama bear, people should back off and let him, or risk their bandleader changing the setlist on them and conveniently forgetting to tell them. 

“Alright,” Jimmy pursed his lips. 

“Wayne and Nick?” Johnny suggested. 

Wayne’s face fell. Nick laughed nervously. 

“Yeah, no,” Nick shook his head. “I’m not sharing a bed with him.”

“Why not?” Johnny asked. “You already live together, it’s not that awkward, right?”

Nick stuttered for a second. “Because - he’s stupidly tall. We wouldn’t both fit.”

“Right,” Wayne spoke up. “And when have you ever known me to do something like sharing a bed? For an entire night. With this slob, too. That won’t happen.”

They were terrible liars, to put it mildly. Davy shared a knowing look with Jimmy and Julia and smirked, in what he hoped was a ‘what can you do’ kind of way. The two of them thought they were being secretive about whatever kind of relationship they had, and therefore had to refuse - and be repulsed by - sharing a bed. But Davy had seen the hotel rooms they’d stayed in before; Wayne was neat, but not so much so that one bed in the room looked completely untouched.  
But if they didn’t want to talk about it, then the five other band members wouldn’t push it. That was one of their many rules that had never had to be spoken. 

“Wait. Davy and I can share the one bed, right?” Johnny looked up, and Davy hated how Johnny wrinkled his forehead when he realized something, because it made him impossible to deny.  
Jimmy looked at Davy, then pretended he hadn’t. Not surprising, considering everything Davy had let spill about feelings for Johnny. Jimmy was a good friend to try to protect Davy from his own emotions, but something about it seemed patronizing. He squinted, and watched Jimmy continue to turn. 

“I think you might have to,” Wayne shrugged. “Since none of us will. Davy?”

Davy tried to put on his best resigned-but-optimistic face, and made a point of not looking at Jimmy, who undoubtedly wore an expression reeking of sympathy and glee at the irony of it all. “Sure. That works with me, as long as Johnny doesn’t think I smell.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Julia waved her hands in dismissal, and Davy noticed for the first time how exhausted she looked. “Let’s just go on up.”

They did make their way up to the room, Davy holding out hope the whole way up that Donny had been wrong about his mistake and the two of them were actually getting a room with two beds. Upon opening the door, however, Davy had to let go of that wish. One bed, clear as day. 

“I’m exhausted,” Johnny said, and even as he did he yawned as if he was afraid Davy might not believe him. He looked at the single bed and hummed in thought. “How should we do it?”

Davy was too surprised by Johnny’s bluntness to come up with a clever answer. “Uh, what?”

“Toe-head, head-toe?” Johnny didn’t even notice Davy’s misinterpretation of the question, but he pointed to each side of the bed, and Davy understood. Johnny was asking if they should sleep opposite each other, so their faces weren’t next to each other. 

“Right. Um, that works for me,” Davy nodded. 

“Or should it be head-toe, toe-head?” Johnny tilted his head, confusion clouding his face. He looked up at Davy. “Do you have a preference?”

Davy shook his head. “No, Johnny, I think whatever you do will work for me. Do what you wanna for your back, and I’ll follow along.”

He watched Johnny pull up the covers and lay them at an angle before pulling his shirt off by the hem around his neck. Davy turned away when his hands went for the buckle on his belt. He heard Johnny get in bed and sigh, and turned around again.  
Johnny’s face was perfect bliss, his eyes closed in half-sleep. Davy took the small opportunity to smile.  
And then he climbed into bed too, not even thinking about picking up a bottle or a book beforehand, feeling strangely more at peace than he had in a few nights.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this could turn smutty so easily. I'm not saying I kinda want someone to write an alternate ending for me but,,,

Davy woke up to a knee jabbing into his chest. It was certainly not his favorite way to jolt out of a deep, actually restful sleep. But really, sleep was a rare phenomenon, so what was one more night without it?  
He sat up, groggily blinking away the sleep from his eyes. He found the source of the pain with little difficulty: Johnny’s knee, twitching and kicking. His eyes scanned upwards towards Johnny’s face to find that his friend’s whole body was twitching, almost lifelessly.   
A nightmare. Davy was familiar.  
Johnny twitched again, this time his foot narrowly missing Davy’s face. 

“Johnny,” Davy grumbled. 

Johnny didn’t wake up. Alright, sometimes it took a little more to get someone out of a nightmare. 

“Johnny,” he said louder. “Jonathan. Jack. Jack Daniels.”

Still, nothing. Davy sat up straighter and put his hand on Johnny’s chest, shaking his arm gently. “Johnny Simpson.”

From where he was bundled under the blankets, Johnny shot awake, sitting up as if he’d been called to attention. He turned his head around, looking into the dark, his eyes revealing how his whirring brain was trying to figure out why it had been transported from seeing a battlefield in Europe to a dark hotel room in Nashville. When he realized where he was and what had happened, he relaxed and let his shoulders drop. 

“They were shooting at us, Davy,” he whispered, and Davy sighed, nodding.

“Yeah, probably.” It was pointless to ask who Johnny meant by ‘they’ or ‘us’. He didn’t remember who exactly was doing the shooting or at whom. 

“Why would they shoot at us?”

“‘Cause they’re nazi bastards, Johnny,” Davy answered, feeling more awake now that he was talking. “What other reason do they need?”

“But what’d I ever do to them?” Johnny almost whined, his words slow. “They didn’t even know me.”

Davy laughed despite himself. “If I were a gambling man-”

“-you are.”

“Right. You probably shot at them, too,” Davy shook his head. “They shot at you for the same reasons you shot at them.”

“Which were?”

“To get to fire the gun. ‘Cause someone told you to. ‘Cause you were scared. Plus,” Davy added as he thought of something else, “they probably wouldn’t like you very much if they met you.”

Johnny looked even more confused than before. “Why not? I’m nice, aren’t I?”

“Well yeah, of course you are,” Davy said, and couldn’t help but think that was why he was in a bed with Johnny. “But think about it. Not only are you American, which kind of instantly makes you the devil to them, but you’re an American veteran. With a head injury. And think about the band you’re in. Celebrating the story of American veterans would probably be a no-go for them.” Davy laughed darkly as he remembered another point. “And then think about your bandmates.”

“What about ‘em?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Jimmy. Wayne and Nick. Donny and Michael. Nazis aren’t big on the whole homosexual thing.”

Davy did not think about how he conveniently left his name off the list.   
Johnny laughed. If Davy had been someone else - Julia, maybe - he would have found it insulting, insensitive, and incomprehensible how they could laugh at the prospect of their friends and even themselves being killed for being honest about who they were. But he wasn’t someone else; between actually serving, seeing what he had in Dachau, and serving with men who talked like he did, Davy was well versed in the usage of gallows humor. 

“Another reason for them to not like me personally,” Johnny said. “You can add me to the list of homos in the band.”

Davy tilted his head. “Oh. I didn’t realize.”

“‘S fine, people never do if they’re not-”

“Oh, no, I am. Or partway, at least,” Davy interrupted. “That’s why I’m so surprised I didn’t know.”

It was Johnny’s turn to look surprised, which Davy could only vaguely see in the dim light. “Oh. I wouldn’t have known.”

“So we’re even, yeah?” Davy joked, and Johnny nodded again. 

A beat of silence passed, in which Davy felt a sharp pain shoot through him. 

“Johnny,” he asked. “I know you need to lay that way for your back, but my neck is killin’ me like this. Can we just-”

Johnny moved over more to his side of the bed. “Yeah, for sure.”

“Thanks,” Davy all but fell out of the bed. He grabbed the pillow from under his head and threw it so it landed next to Johnny’s face, then lifted up the covers and climbed back in. 

And fuck if that wasn’t awkward. Davy, shoulder to shoulder with Johnny, after both of them saying they liked men. Johnny turned to lay on his side and face away from Davy, leaving Davy with just his thoughts. If he’d thought Johnny was attractive and sweet - too good to be true - before, seeing him like this was another level of it. Vulnerability, fear, humanity. Davy envied it almost. Envy and admiration were so closely twisted, however, that Davy felt guilty just for thinking he didn’t know if it was one or the other.   
But something here just felt right. Something about the closeness, or the easiness of talking to Johnny and telling him things felt like what he wanted to do for years to come. Davy was more used to the burn of whiskey than he was softness of bedsheets and heavy breathing next to him, but he wondered if he couldn’t make the latter as familiar to him as the former. 

“Johnny.”

Johnny groaned and turned over to face Davy again. 

“I don’t want to wake you up again, I’m sorry. I should let you sleep,” Davy felt guilt wash over him. Just as Johnny was starting to get back to sleep, too. 

“You already spoke, and if you don’t say somethin’ now, I’m not gonna be able to sleep ‘til I know what you have to say.”

Davy swallowed. “Oh. Um. I just wanted to say thanks. For agreeing to take the single room. It means a lot that you stepped up to it.”

“You’re lying. I can tell when you’re lying.”

“How can you tell I’m lying?” Davy asked, forgetting anything else he might have said. 

Johnny laughed like he’d made a joke. “I couldn’t. But now I know you are.”

Davy sighed, not quite angry (the day he got actually angry at Johnny would be the day he left the band), but not proud of himself either. “Well now I’m not telling you what I wanted to say.”

“No,” Johnny whined, dragging out the vowel sound. “Tell me.”

“I won’t.”

“Please?”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Well yeah,” Johnny laughed again. “And you love me.”

Davy sighed lowly at the irony of the whole situation. “I have neither words nor measure, and for the other, I have no strength in measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength,” he said, and gulped. 

“Shakespeare?” Johnny asked, his voice hoarse but obviously spoken through a smile. 

“Henry the fifth.”

“What does it mean?”

Davy didn’t speak, but let the silence hang for a moment. He could feel Johnny’s feet fidgeting underneath the covers, probably cold - why Johnny refused to wear socks to bed was a mystery. “I just don’t have the words or the power to say what I wanna say.”

He could all but hear Johnny’s forehead wrinkling. “Oh. Okay, um. If you figure it out, I’ll listen to you. You know that, right?”

Something in Davy snapped, and he turned to his side to look at Johnny, whose face was visible only because Davy’s eyes had adjusted so much in the last few moments of talking. His hand moved apart from his head, finding its way to Johnny’s shoulder, then his cheek.   
Leaning in was an awkward feat, but a doable one when Johnny’s mouth was inches away, and so much easier to reach than whatever words he may have wanted to say.   
He expected Johnny to pull away - being attracted to men didn’t mean Johnny was attracted to him - but he rolled his entire body into Davy’s instead, pressing his chest against Davy’s.   
They laid there for a moment, barely breathing, barely moving, too caught off-guard by their own closeness to do anything. 

“I don’t know why I did that,” Davy pulled his head back, but kept his hand on Johnny’s waist where it had landed, just in case. 

Johnny laughed, a burst of hot air on Davy’s cheek. “I do. But can we talk about it tomorrow instead? I’m too tired.”

Davy laughed too, and nodded. “Yeah, alright. Is this-” he gestured to the two of them “-okay?”

“This is fine,” Johnny said. “This is good.”

“Good,” Davy whispered, and let his head fall on the pillow. 

Johnny nodded off eventually, tucking his head into Davy’s shoulder. Davy didn’t exactly sleep, but that was far from the first thing on his mind for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I could be persuaded to write a third chapter to this, maybe a slightly awkward morning after?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay for a third chapter for those of you who wanted it!!

Davy woke up, and for a minute, his positioning felt so right that he could have fallen right back asleep. His arm underneath a sleeping man, a head resting on his chest gently, some heavy breathing as a soundtrack to make the room cozy. 

And then, like he'd heard a gunshot, he remembered where he was. What he'd done last night. His eyes opened wide, but his fear made his heart race, so he slammed them shut.  
That wasn't much better; now the memory of the kiss, the cuddling, and the peace he felt with it flashed in his mind like he was at a movie with Julia. 

Davy tried to steady his breathing, but he must have moved his leg or arm, and Johnny groaned. Instinctively, Davy pulled his arm closer.  
He'd had far too many nights when he'd spent the night with men who were sweet in the nighttime but disgusted by what they'd done come morning, who turned angry as they walked out the door. He couldn't imagine Johnny being like that, but he wasn't sure he wanted to take a risk. Unfortunately, that meant if Johnny hadn’t already been awake, Davy had woken him. 

“Davy?” Johnny sat up, blinked, and looked around the room, pulling a lazy arm up to rub his eyes. "Oh yeah," he said, laughing at himself as he remembered. "You're not in a different bed this time."

"Yeah," Davy laughed, sticking a tongue out to wet his dry lips. "Shared a bed this time."

"And we - we kissed," Johnny nodded resolutely. 

"That's right too."

He seemed more awake now that he had the memory, and looked at Davy, tilting his head. "And it was good?"

Davy didn't really have a correct answer for that. Well, not even that was right. He did. Yes, yes, yes. And also no, no, no, he does not want to think about how good it was because that means he has to tell Jimmy and Wayne and Julia and he just would rather none of that had to happen. 

Johnny heard the uncertainty in Davy's voice, and interpreted it as a denial. 

"Oh. Okay. Um, I'm sorry then. I didn't know you didn't want to - I shouldn't have assumed."

"No, no!" Davy's shoulders hunched to his chin. "I-"

Johnny held out a hand to stop him. "Can I just say though? I hoped you would be better than this. I don't know if I expected better, but. Sometimes guys like to be like you, and say they want something, and then they get scared in the morning, and I just thought that with Jimmy and Wayne and Nick and Donny and Julia in the band, with them bein' how they are - how we are - you might be better."

"I'm not-"

"I'm hungry, Davy. I'm gonna go for breakfast."

Davy didn’t know how to protest, so he didn’t. He watched as Johnny grabbed a clean shirt and pair of pants and stepped into the bathroom to change. Johnny hadn’t gone somewhere else to change since the first time they went to New York. The idea that he’d shamed Johnny into retreating felt like a well-aimed punch.  
The door opened and slammed closed, leaving Davy dumbfounded, still in bed. He hadn't meant to offend Johnny. In fact, if anyone else had offended Johnny the way he just had, he normally would have tracked that person down and given them a talking to, and a violent one at that. He wished he could do it to himself, but he knew it wouldn't do much good. 

He rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes. He didn't know if they were clean or not - at some point during tours, clothes always got mixed up with each other.  
Checking to make sure he had his room key and that he'd made the bed a little, he walked out of the room and down the hallway, towards the free breakfast buffet, where he'd undoubtedly find the rest of the band. 

No one talked to him as he walked into the room; only the smell of eggs and cheap coffee greeted him. Jimmy was the only band member to look up at him, and he was grateful for it. Jimmy at least knew that he hadn't meant to put Johnny in a sour mood, since Jimmy was the only one to know the depth of how Davy felt about his roomate.  
He grabbed a slice of toast and a cup of coffee and sat down at the table set for four where Jimmy and Donny sat. 

“You make a mistake?” Jimmy whispered, leaning his head in so that no one else would hear him. 

“Like invading Russia in the winter.”

Jimmy shook his head. “Are you going to make it right?”

Davy downed a few gulps of his coffee and made a face at how bad it was. “I need to, but I dunno how.”

“Well what’d you do to him?” Donny asked. 

Johnny slammed his fork on the table so loudly that it echoed across the entire room. He stood up, his chair screeching backwards as he did, and all but stomped out of the room. Julia stood up quietly and followed him, leaving Wayne and Nick alone at a table.  
Davy felt them staring at him, and he tensed. “Kissed him” he muttered. “Talked to him. Didn’t kiss him again in the morning - I wanted to talk first about what it might mean - and he took it the wrong way. Thought I didn’t want to do anything.”

“Oh,” Jimmy nodded. “Makes sense. Johnny’s more, um, tactile than verbal.”

Donny made a sound that might have been a laugh, and Davy groaned. 

“Thus with a kiss,” he leaned back in his chair, “I die.”

“It’s not nearly that bad,” Wayne yelled at him from across the room, and Davy took a second to be overjoyed that the five of them were the only people in the room, and that no one else had heard the conversation. “Talk to him.”

“You can’t talk, Wayne,” Donny replied. “You two took forever to figure yourselves out. And you were living together.”

“And you’re happy,” Davy ran a hand through his hair. “Anyone happy doesn’t get to tell me what to do.”

Nick shook his head. “We do, though, because we had this exact problem. To the letter.”

“Well, we were at home, actually, not in a hotel,” Wayne corrected. 

“Okay so other than that,” Nick continued, pointing at Wayne but keeping his eyes focused on Davy. “And we talked it out and-” he gestured at Wayne across from him, who smiled and nodded. 

Davy shoved the last of his toast in his mouth. “I hate that you’re right,” he said through the food in his mouth, and stood up to go find Johnny. 

He knocked on the door to Julia’s room without even thinking about it. He knew where Johnny would be; if he and Julia had run off together, they would be having a bitching session in her room. It wouldn’t be the first time, and wouldn’t be the last.  
Something blocked the peephole, and he heard a sigh. The door pulled open and Johnny stared back at him. 

“What do you want?”

Davy cleared his throat. “To apologize, I guess? To talk, mostly.” He looked around Johnny and made eye contact with Julia. “Um.”

She waved her hand and nodded. “It’s fine, I’ll just leave my own room and find Jimmy or Donny or Nick and we’ll talk about how rude you are behind your back.” Despite her words, her voice brimmed with raillery, and she kissed him on the cheek as she stepped out of the room. 

“Come in,” Johnny shrugged. “I’ll be better than standing in the hallway.”

Davy did as he was told, happy to be given direction so he could take time to think.  
“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about how I felt, or - kiss you again or say anything this morning. I didn’t know how to feel,” he sat down on the edge of the single bed, “and I was so tired last night and this morning that I couldn’t form words no matter how much I tried.”

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” He fiddled with the loose sheets on the bed. “I - I’m not coherent in the mornings, which isn’t really an excuse, ‘cause I should have been able to say I liked the kiss without thinking, but I guess I got in my head about it and couldn’t.”

Johnny wasn’t looking at him when he looked up, so he sighed. 

“I’m get it if you don’t wanna try again, or if it was just kinda a middle of the night thing, but I did like kissing you, and I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Johnny put his hand on Davy’s knee. “I shoulda listened. Julia told me so, and she’s right”

“Usually is,” Davy supplemented.

That got a chuckle out of Johnny. “Well, yeah. But I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t mean it, you know? If I want to do that again, the kissing and being close to you - and I do - then I’d say it, so I am.”

Davy grinned. “Do you wanna tell Donny that if he wants to get another room with just one bed, he can?”

“For financial reasons, of course,” Johnny laughed. 

“Right, yeah,” Davy rolled his eyes, but he felt full to be laughing and joking with Johnny again. He paused, and shook his head. “We probably shouldn’t, actually. The press, you know.”

“You don’t wanna-”

“No, I do wanna. Just in a room with two beds, so that if we get accused of bein’ homos, we’ve got proof that we’re alright. Like Nick and Wayne do.”

Johnny nodded in understanding. “Right. Okay. Do you want to tell the band that we’re a thing? Are we a thing?”

“I want to tell the band if you want to tell the band, and I want to be a thing if you want to.”

Johnny leaned in so close that Davy could feel his breath on his cheek. “I like how that sounds.”

Davy laughed in between little kisses. “Me too. Oh, hey,” he put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder and pushed back. “We’ve got the room with a single bed tonight too. There’s that, at least.”

Johnny grinned, giggling. “We could make good use of it.”

“We could,” Davy rested his head into Johnny’s chest. 

“Do that somewhere besides my room, boys!” they heard Julia’s voice yell as she knocked on the door. 

Davy stood up to get the door, and he and Johnny stepped into the hallway while Julia traded places with them. 

“I’m happy for you,” she smiled, “but my goodness.”

“Thanks Julia!” Johnny laughed. 

She shook her head. “Thank Donny,” she said, the lines around her eyes showing as she grinned and closed the door. 

“Guess we should, actually,” Davy admitted as the two of them started the walk back to their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ending isn't good but that's alright

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is a cliche trope, but I love it and I don't think I've ever written it before! Make my day and let me know if you liked it by leaving a comment or kudo, or come chat on tumblr @allbesolucky!


End file.
